Professor Bainbridge sees an interesting tension in the successful initial hiring at the UCI Law faculty:
Liberals like Chemerinsky say that affirmative action is necessary so that a school can “look like” the community it serves. In this case, however, it seems to be okay with just about everybody that Chemerinsky’s law school doesn’t reflect the ideological diversity of Orange County so long as it looks like the liberal academy. The sad thing is that prominent conservatives like Pushaw and Eastman seem to have accepted the state of things.
I’m the first to admit that the ideological bent of the academy is not entirely the result of discrimination against conservatives (although God knows that exists), but I also think law schools need to do a better job of conducting broad searches that have a reasonable chance of kicking up qualified conservatives.
Chemerinsky claims he’s doing such a search, but the proof will be in the pudding.
Brian Leiter lists the starting faculty with links to the press release here.
